Hotel Magnifique(9)
“Oh . . . Sorry,” I said, awkward, while my heart gave a little twist. I barely had any memories of my own father. My gaze dropped to his key. “Then swear it on your magic.”
“Fine. I swear on my magic I’ll give you a job. Now we’ll have to run if we want to make it on time.”
Right. I pictured me and Zosa stepping out of the hotel and into Aligney, returning home at last. Bel gave me an odd look when I giggled then slapped a hand over my mouth. I turned toward the stairwell and paused. If we ran, Zosa couldn’t keep up with us.
“You’ll have to carry her,” I said, and flew up the stairs. Bel followed at my heels. Seconds later, he swung Zosa over his shoulder like a sack of winter turnips. She blinked awake, bucking, until I whispered the plan.
“Who is he?” she mouthed, then wagged her eyebrows at his backside.
God. “Stop that.” I pinched her nose.
Bel looked between us.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You really wouldn’t have let me take her without you.” He sounded surprised.
“Like you said, irritatingly persistent.”
His mouth twitched as if holding back a smile. “Don’t drop the invitation until you’re through the front door.” He started down the hall.
Zosa’s sack still sat on the floor filled with Maman’s junk left over from her days as a music tutor. Those pearl earrings.
Then it hit me: Zosa would soon sing in front of a real audience, what she’d always wanted. All those years of scraping by were worth it after all.
In a few months we’d have enough saved to support us for years in Aligney. But we could travel with the hotel first, see some of the world. Everything felt too wonderful to be real.
“Would you hurry?” Bel shouted.
Footsteps creaked. Girls were waking up.
I hoisted Zosa’s spider-infested burlap and raced after the doorman carrying my sister.
Maman once told me that a true gift tends to make itself known. The year I turned eleven, I finally understood what she had meant.
Aligney’s Fête de la Moisson took place at the start of autumn. Grown-ups sipped vin de framboise under the stars and bartered their late summer crops, and Maman had her students perform to collect donations for the music school.
That year, Zosa had begged to sing at the fête. Not yet, ma petite pêche, Maman had scolded. You’re too young. But I’d thought my sister was good enough to earn some dublonnes and we wanted to buy this tin of butter caramels we’d spotted in a shop window. They were exquisite—wrapped in golden foil with little adventure stories tucked beneath each label. Determined to have them, I tied ribbons into Zosa’s hair and stole an apple crate from our cupboard. After sundown, we marched to the edge of town where the festival was held.
Everyone stood behind intricately painted stalls lit by flickering lanterns carved with fairytales. Embarrassed at our old crate, I almost turned around. But Zosa refused, and I had splinters from hauling that awful crate. I hadn’t wanted it to be for nothing.
Stealthily avoiding Maman, we crept to the end where the late arrivals were setting up. I recognized Madame Durand stacking aubergines from her garden. She turned up her ruddy nose when I kicked rocks to make a space. I put out the donation sign I’d painted along with an empty flour jar.
Old Durand had snickered, and I’d hated her for it. But Zosa ignored her. She hopped right up and began singing so beautifully that everyone stopped what they were doing to watch.
I’d been listening to Zosa sing for so long that her voice felt as ordinary as her snoring, but the people around us didn’t have the same reaction. A crowd formed. What a songbird! An angel! Remarkable little plum, people murmured. Then Maman appeared, and she was covering her mouth.
That’s it, I’d thought, we’re about to be hauled away by our earlobes. But Maman’s hand fell away and she smiled. Tears pricked her eyes, and I laughed in relief, and then at the sound of dublonnes clinking into our flour jar. All because of my sister.
I often wondered if Zosa remembered that day, if it had been as significant to her as it was to me. Now here we were, years later, standing before a prize larger than any flour jar filled with coins.
Moonlight cast Hotel Magnifique in shades of gleaming silver. Bel opened the black-lacquered door. With my hands gripping the invitation, the lights appeared crisp in a way they hadn’t before. I pushed my fingers past the threshold. No invisible wall.
“Greetings, traveler!” A woman’s obnoxiously effervescent voice chimed in my ears.
“Who was that?”
Bel glared. “Would you get on with it? You might be holding a sack of junk, but I’m holding a tiny person with rather sharp bones.”
When I didn’t make a move, he nudged me forward and I stumbled across the threshold. I opened my mouth to complain, but the words never came. The stink of fish was gone, replaced with floral scents and an undercurrent of oranges. And the sight . . .
This place wouldn’t fit inside that old alley, nor a space fifty times that size.
The hotel was a palace.
A colossal staircase curved up the back. Candle-stuffed globes dripped from overhead like shining grapes. Above them, gold trim and filigreed fauna decorated every speck of ceiling, while the surrounding walls were papered in dark flowers. As I stared at the wallpaper, the petals fluttered as if blowing in a breeze.